Wolves and Sheep
by MissAnnThropic
Summary: It was exhausting having to constantly fake mediocrity when everything about him flew in the face of mundane. Alec fic.


Title: Wolves and Sheep

Author: MissAnnThropic

LiveJournal: miss_annthropic(dot)livejournal(dot)com

Summary: It was exhausting having to constantly fake mediocrity when everything about him flew in the face of mundane. Alec fic.

Disclaimer: None of it's mine. I'm just a sad little fangirl that spends her days writing fanfic and watching DVDs of her favorite shows :(

A/N: I have to confess that I derive far too much joy out of writing Alec. And not just any Alec, but every angle of Alec imaginable. There are so many shades and ways to write him, and each one seems plausible in its own right. Alec's just a chameleon like that. This here, this was the Alec that is not so far removed from what Ben was. I told a buddy on LJ once that I think (because Alec _must_ have some of the same crazy genes Ben had, psy-ops time be damned) that Alec is the most dangerous transgenic of the whole bunch.

Also, I always thought there was something wrong with the way Max/Alec fics are usually written, with Alec being so totally into Max just as she is, when I really think he would have to see her longing for the 'normal' world as damaged.

* * *

Walking the streets of Seattle, a transgenic among normals, Alec felt like a lion among the wildebeest. In all respects, the analogy was pretty apt. They were dangerous to him by the sheer magnitude of their numbers, a danger to him because they had horns, but down to the raw facts – he was the predator, and they were the prey.

And if they knew what he was, moving through the crowds so seamlessly in his faux-gnu hide coat, they would panic like a herd of grazers, too. Pandemonium would follow. Alec did not want that. Even the strongest predator could be crushed in the stampede of so many mindlessly terrified herbivores.

So Alec flew under the radar, kept his claws sheathed, and tried to copycat the normals as far as he could stand. But he could never be just like them, both by virtue of his superior genes and the fact he didn't want to.

They were the plodding ungulates, and Alec was the honed killer.

* * *

When he was alone, Alec stuck to the back alleys and fringe regions of the city. There he could stop forcing aloofness into his walk, cavalier into the swing of his arms, nonchalant into the cant of his head, approachable into his expressions. Alone, he could stalk like he was trained to, move like a silent shadow as he was born to, abandon the normals' social plague of trying so damn hard not to unsettle other people by smiling when it wasn't warranted and looking interested when there was no reason for it. Alec was only really comfortable when he knew there was steel in his eyes and deadly precision in the movement of his body.

It was exhausting having to constantly fake mediocrity when everything about him flew in the face of mundane.

He couldn't demean himself to master the disguise of being a normal flawlessly. It was too loathsome to even consider. So the normals saw him as arrogant, cocky, full of himself…

If they only knew how much he humbled himself to blend in with them, even when he stood out from the crowd. They thought he stood out as an extraordinary ordinary, and that was victory in itself. The weak little normals who hated him and didn't really know why were affronted by the simple fact he was better than they were.

He was better, and by existing for normals to compare themselves to (and in doing so realize how far short they fell from him) made them hate him.

Alec imagined he'd hate someone who made him look puny and substandard, too.

But then, he would never know what that was like. He wasn't made to be second-rate.

Even in Manticore, the natural imbalance had been there. They were superior creatures created by inferior humans. Alec remembered the shift that came over him and his unit as they grew into their strengths, their capabilities, and realized they surpassed those that lorded over them.

Somewhere around eight years old, Alec looked at his drill instructor and understood in a flash of clarity the 'commander' was a sheep, and Alec was a young wolf. They were all wolves, penned and corralled by sheep.

Alec didn't blame Max for getting Manticore torched as much as he liked to let on he did, because he really believed that Manticore's downfall was going to happen sooner or later. It was inevitable. The wolves weren't so young anymore, and eventually the shelter and easy food they provided would stop outweighing the aggravation of being commanded and ordered around by prey.

That was probably the part of Manticore he missed the most. Not the sheep, but the honesty. There was no need to pretend he wasn't a dangerous predator… that they all weren't. The sheep running Manticore knew that; kept the X series caged and guarded for the threat they were. There was satisfaction in that, in knowing the high-and-mighty normals running the program were actually scared of their own creation. Otherwise, why have them in cages?

Max had told Alec that Manticore was using him. But aside from one instance, he never thought so. He was using Manticore.

There was a time when he was younger, less vicious toward the hand that fed him – a time before Rachel – when Alec might have given the edge to the Manticore commanders for having the upper hand. Not after the Berrisford mission. When he was dragged back to Manticore fighting, and they overpowered him by numbers and broke him by torture, Alec began to turn on his keepers.

Nothing obvious. Nothing physical.

But by the time Manticore went up in smoke, it was definitely Alec using them.

Max had only destroyed Manticore before Alec finally turned traitor and attacked them, which was bound to happen because it was against nature for the sheep to rule over the wolf.

* * *

There was a saying that there is always an exception to the rule. That had been Rachel. Rachel Berrisford had been different from the moment Alec met her. She was a normal, but she was special.

Alec didn't look at her and see a sheep. He saw a lamb. Delicate and gentle and soft. He was taken by the innocence. She hadn't succumbed to the rot of humanity yet, the teeming pit of insecurity and fear that motivated the bulk of all their actions. She was pure.

She looked right at Alec and saw only the good things. Alec was a good pretender, but he wasn't that great an actor with Rachel. She disarmed him too much. It was just that she couldn't believe him capable of evil, not the man she'd given her heart to, and so the little lamb offered herself to the lion.

She had a faith in him he had never garnered before, a belief in him as a person, which was so fundamentally different from the trust his commanders had in him that he could finish his mission. It was a belief based upon _him_ as an individual. It was intoxicating to be valued as a person and not a weapon, new and alluring.

She made him want to forget who he was, what he was, and be whatever she saw when she looked at him. He wished he was the man she thought he was, even if that meant, for the briefest moment, that he wished he were one of them.

When the car exploded and Manticore operatives dragged him away screaming her name, it was the only time Alec really, truly hated Manticore. Because how dare those ungulates take from the lion his little lamb.

That day, that moment, Manticore secured Alec's eventual betrayal.

Alec only resented that Max took the chance of it away from him when she got Manticore torched.

* * *

"Alec."

Alec looked up at the name, his now, when Max strode across the room at Jam Pony, purpose in her step. Alec watched her, for Max was a fine piece of Manticore genetics, and waited for her to come to him.

For a long time, Max puzzled Alec. He should get her, inside and out, because she was like him, a sculpted weapon just like he was. Her motives and instincts should be obvious to Alec.

But he didn't get her. She baffled him, and he couldn't figure it out.

"What's up, Max?" Alec asked casually, feet kicked up on a table, his chair titled back on two legs, porn magazine in his lap. That stuff really amused Alec to no end. The normals were so disgusting to each other that there were enough out there that no one would touch that pornography actually had a market. A way for the truly disgusting, revolting specimens of the species to see what they couldn't have.

Everyone, Max included, saw Alec with porn as rakish and juvenile, testosterone-induced behavior. The truth was it made Alec laugh.

The fact that Alec could go into any bar or club and come out with a ready and willing woman just proved the fact. Not even the sheep wanted another sheep when they could have a wolf.

Max scowled at Alec's magazine, shoved his feet aside so his chair slammed back to all four legs on the floor, and she leaned in to say seriously in a near-whisper, "Logan's got something he needs us to do."

Alec lifted his eyebrows. "Has he now? Something for _us_?"

Max narrowed her eyes. "Fine, _me_… but it's a big job, I need backup."

Alec stretched, lacing his fingers together behind his head. "Well, maybe I've already got plans."

Max looked furious. "This is _important_. Your bimbo of the week can wait."

Alec looked hard at her. "And what made you think I was interested in this saving the world business?"

Max stood up and stared at him, appalled at his attitude. She looked disgusted that he would put his own entertainment over human lives.

And that's when Alec figured it out.

Max actually _wanted_ to be a sheep. She wasn't just putting on an act or faking it… she was trying to force herself into a mold she could never fit. She'd lived among them so long, hated being something different from everyone around her so much, that she tried to _make_ herself a sheep. Never mind it was impossible – she would always be a fox in the chicken coupe – that she wanted to be anything else but a hunter was shocking.

"Why are you looking at me like that?" Max asked sharply, defensively. Like maybe she knew and didn't like the answer.

Alec shook his head. Suddenly it made sense. For the first time ever, Alec felt sorry for her.

Sorry and repulsed. What wolf in their right mind…

Then Alec thought of Rachel, his little lamb, and how he would have done anything to be what she wanted.

Logan was no where near the gem that Rachel had been, but maybe he was the closest Max was ever going to get.

Alec was back to feeling sorry for her.

"All right, what does four-eyes have for us?"

Max gave him a nasty look for the name-calling, but in the next second gratitude flashed in her eyes. Because, naturally, for all her desperate efforts to be a normal, when it came time for a fight she wanted another wolf at her side. She might insult and abuse Alec mercilessly, but in a dangerous situation he was her first choice for backup.

She'd pick him over Logan, because she might be deluding herself, but she wasn't strategically stupid. Manticore saw to that. She knew which man at her back would be the biggest asset.

* * *

Alec kept going on Eyes Only missions with Max for several different reasons. Sometimes, he was just bored. The life of a normal, a life he was trying to at least imitate to a convincing degree, was mind-numbingly boring. Other times, it was to protect himself. If Manitcore's experiments became public, the wildebeest would stampede, and Alec would rather not see it come to that. Sometimes, Alec went along because he didn't trust Max to keep herself out of harm's way. Logan might look at Max and see a take-on-anything kick-ass chick, but Alec looked at her and saw the ten years she missed of combat training, the years of fighting nothing more than normal street thugs and bar crawlers that had not left her prepared for half the crap Logan expected her to tackle in his mission to save the world.

And sometimes, Alec went along with it because he missed the rush. Logan's little errands were like sloppy mock-ups of the missions Manticore used to send him on… missions he had been trained from birth to be an expert at. Sheep or wolf, it felt good to do something you were naturally adept at, and covert ops and _killing people_ were what Alec did best.

Sometimes, Alec suspected Max asked him along because she knew he could do the things she couldn't. And since she was trying so hard to be a normal and he wasn't, he could do the things she wouldn't. For instance, Max had a thing about not using guns; Alec could field-strip any weapon given him in ten seconds flat. More than just proficiency, he _liked_ the feel of a gun in his hand.

Max tried not to kill anyone unless it was absolutely necessary, and Alec murdered when it was strategically the best action for the situation, no compunction or hesitation. There was the enemy and all that mattered in a confrontation was neutralizing the enemy, by whatever means necessary.

On one of Logan's little amateur missions, Max and Alec found themselves in a hand-to-hand fight, outnumbered as usual. During the fight, Alec got hold of one of the attacker's knives.

When Max finished kicking the crap out of her opponent, she turned to see Alec standing over four dead men, knife in hand, blood everywhere.

She looked at him, and he saw her visibly flinch at the raw savagery in his eyes. It was only a split-second flinch, but a flinch nonetheless, and Alec decided that really said it all.

Max was going to lie to herself, try to make herself believe the sheep-skin she wore was her own flesh, but Alec would never bow to that delusion. He was a weapon, and he would never imagine himself as anything less.

That Max would shy from him for embracing the truth of what he was only cast shame upon Max, not on Alec.

He was not the one lying to himself.

* * *

It seemed like there were two dueling existences that Alec lived. There was the man who walked the dark streets at night, unafraid, and the Alec he turned into when he slipped into Max's world of self-delusion and pretenses of being a normal human being.

They were two very different men, and neither one truly Alec (for 'Alec' didn't really exist), so it didn't seem to matter much either way which persona he donned. It said a lot of his skills of deception that not even Max suspected he was playing a game, the joke on the entire world.

He thought it was telling, however, that Max never thought to ask Alec what he did when he wasn't with her. He was out of sight, out of mind so often with her, and Alec took pride in the facades he could so masterfully build up if he so chose. Not even high-and-mighty Max suspected who he truly was. He was pretty sure she thought he was out cruising for chicks, sharking pool, and beating up normals that thought they were such hot shit. Aside from the last one, none of those were much fun unless there was another transgenic there watching that knew just how woefully the pitiful normals were being played.

It was like a killer whale tossing a wounded sea lion just for the joy in it.

Alec didn't even 'cat around' with women nearly as much as Max thought he did, because, honestly, half the time the normal women made him cringe. They were carrion compared to transgenic women. Those normal women that he did sleep with, he tried to make them ones that would be in Max's social circle so word would leak back to her, because seeing her normal-learned disgust reaction at meaningless philandering was another way Alec got his kicks.

But he did have to admit, not all normals were bad.

Eventually, Alec learned to like Max's world of normals well enough. They were timid and vulnerable, walking homicides waiting to happen, but they were also entertaining and less odious than some. Alec was particularly impressed with OC. She knew her best friend was a science project, whipped up to be something that could kill Cindy in a heartbeat, but the normal didn't care. It didn't end the friendship between the two women.

Alec wondered sometimes if Rachel would have been half as understanding if he'd told her what he was, before they were on the stairs and a bomb ticking under her father's car. He hoped Rachel would have been like Cindy so much that he became fond of OC, transferring on to her the acceptance he would have wanted from Rachel.

Hell, OC knew _he_ was another Manticore test-tube baby, and she still liked him. It gave him hope that Rachel would have.

And maybe it was just the fact that Max was another predator (deny it though she might), but Alec was growing rather fond of her in his own way.

She was no Rachel, but she was different. A killer in a mob of victims, and to a lion that was attractive.

* * *

Alec could think of one time, outside of a combat situation, when he felt he was truly himself with Max.

When she told him about killing Ben. He had no love lost for his twin, the psycho brother being the reason he'd spent six months in psy-ops and all, but he saw Max's pain at the memory, and he felt sorry for her.

Sorry for what she had done, an act of mercy only a born and raised killer could deliver. If Max were a normal, she could not do what she had done to Ben.

When he held her as she cried, it was not Max and Alec. It was two of Manticore's soldiers, muddling through the wreckage of what they were as best they could. It was honest, and Alec felt that Max was so very rarely honest with anyone, least of all herself.

It felt like Rachel, the slipping past the guard, the wolf being blindsided. It was a time when pack members should band together, find strength in numbers, and Alec pressed his lips to Max's head and did just that.

* * *

He knew she had to figure it out eventually, sooner or later, so Alec was almost expecting Max when she came up beside him as he stood alone on the roof of Terminal City and stared up at Joshua's flag.

She didn't speak at first, and Alec didn't press her to. When the Manticore project was brought to public attention, when Biggs was murdered by a pack of fucking _sheep_, Alec found it harder to put on the act of almost a normal. The gig was up, there seemed little point. He let slip the mask of the Jam Pony golden boy messenger without a care in the world. The looks he gave were piercing now, his voice commanding and to-the-point. He was done playing games, and among his own again, he didn't have to anymore.

It was so much of the comfort of Manticore all over again.

He could be a _weapon_ again. It felt good to be himself, no apologies or alter egos.

Max sighed to herself and said, "We'll never coexist with them, will we?"

"No."

Max didn't make a sound. The silence itself was screaming. Max's carefully constructed world of falsehoods was crashing down around her.

Alec finally turned his head to look at her. "Do you really want to?"

Max looked like she was in physical pain. She crossed her arms over her chest, grimaced, and seemed to tear from her throat, "… no."

He knew it had been hard for her to say that. He knew she meant it.

It was disavowing everything she had struggled for years to be. Half a lifetime of effort abandoned in that one word.

She looked at him, looking lost. She was ready to throw off the sheep-skin, but she had worn it so long she forgot how to be a wolf. She looked to him then as someone who had never forgotten, never wore the skin so tight it became an almost-truth. For all the times she had lectured him, she was looking to him now for guidance.

"You shouldn't have to live as a lie, Max," Alec said. "We're better than that. Better than them. Why pretend that we're not?"

"We're freaks, Alec," Max countered. "Mutants."

"If anyone should feel bad about that, it's them. They made us." Alec turned his body to face hers, took her arms in his hands, and said evenly, "Be what you are, Max. Be proud of what you are. Why should a wolf be ashamed of what it is?"

Max looked up into his eyes, searching, and finally said, "They're sheep." Disgust, just a hint of it, was in her voice. Tentative, like she was trying it out. The look in her face told Alec at least part of her liked it. Somehow, in ways she didn't know, it rang true.

And there she was, beyond everything Max had done to try and smother her, Max the wolf.

Alec smiled.

END


End file.
